At the tail end of this past October, Champaign-Urbana’s online culture magazine, Smile Politely, put together a list of their top-20 albums by local bands from the first decade of this millennium. The Viper and His Famous Orchestra made a respectable showing with Everything for Everyone at #19. I’d always wanted to be 19th best at something! Joseph Martin’s account, describing us “coming on like a chipper Cultural Studies salon,” is a very nicely turned framing of this recording in its socio-historico-portico context.

Note also that the Orchestra’s suitcase-player-errant, Edward Burch, also shows up at #15 with The Palace at 4 a.m. (Part 1) as the latter half of Jay Bennett & Edward Burch. And Orchestra percussionist, Victor Cortez, gets an honorable mention with Rectangle’s Uno Nunca Sabe.